Changing the World One Tweet at a Time

The Quest for Truth

Last March I wrote a post revolving around the need to encourage creative thinking beyond reading comprehension. The impetus for the post was inspired by Seth Godin’s manifesto for transforming education, Stop Stealing Dreams. I raised the point that to move beyond a culture of compliance, we needed to teach our children to increase their skills of discernment by questioning what they are taught rather then blind acceptance of the knowledge we feed them.

Who’s dream are you living anyway?

However, before we can effectively teach our children, we must learn how to do this for ourselves. Yet many of us aren’t inspired or motivated enough to do it until we reach a place in our lives where we are tired of finding out that much of the knowledge and beliefs we’ve been programmed to believe over the years simply aren’t working. Unless you have personally reached this place in your own life, you may not see the need for it and may feel that your beliefs have been serving you just fine in life. If so, this post is not for you.

My journey of questioning has been a long one. Much of the time was spent being too concerned about what other people would think. Or I was afraid I would make people angry, so I kept many of those questions to myself.

That all began to change in earnest about a decade ago as a series of life events motivated me to take up the task of sifting through my own knowledge and beliefs. It has become more of a quest for truth really. A desire born out of necessity in realizing that I can’t make very good decisions without it. And frankly, absolutely TIRED of being lied to and running into deceptions at nearly every turn. It is for this reason that truth has become one of my highest values in life, next to love.

How much power have we unconsciously given away?

Along the way, I’ve also learned that lies and deceptions in other people are things I have absolutely no control over. And to this day, it is still more then frustrating when I run into it. However, I still have the power to question my own knowledge, beliefs, and negative programming. This is what I do have some measure of control over and as I learn, I can share with others who may be at a similar place in life.

‘Learning is less about memorizing facts and more about the ability to think.’

I couldn’t agree more. In my response I said, ‘Actually, I’d even go so far as to say that thinking BEFORE memorizing is imperative. Assumption? Or Fact?’ Meaning, before we take the step of intentionally committing knowledge to memory, it would be wise to think about whether or not it’s really a fact or an assumption. In my heart and mind, if it ‘s not information that is truly useful, why would I want to waste my time and energy on memorizing it for automatic recall later? I’ve already spent enough time in my life doing exactly that and didn’t get the results I wanted or needed.

‘Problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.’
~Albert Einstein

This brief Twitter encounter prompted me to think about how we acquire knowledge as children. When we are born, we are propelled dramatically onto the scene of this play we call life. We have people around us who act as our teachers and guides for a time until we are old enough to live on our own. Our young, impressionable minds soak up the information we take in all around us; including the knowledge and beliefs of parents, family, friends, teachers, religions, patriotic beliefs, etc. Yet, the average child does not know how to effectively discern and filter all of that knowledge.

The guard of mindfulness has not yet been awakened in most of us to know how to stand watch at the door of our consciousness. We don’t know that we have the power and the choice as to what information we allow to enter and accept as a belief that is true. Instead, we blindly accept what we are told because we either love and trust the people telling us, or we fear their authority and don’t know any better then to believe what we are told.

And here lies the dilemma, if we’ve been programmed with faulty information to begin with, we won’t be able to make very good decisions.

How can we acquire genuine wisdom unless we get to a place where we can accept the need to question the knowledge we’ve received in the first place?

How will our children be able to make good decisions that have a positive impact on the future if we continue to ignorantly program them with the same faulty beliefs as we were conditioned to believe?

Take a look at our country. Are all those beliefs really WORKING for us?

I can’t speak for you. I can only say that much of the beliefs I’ve been conditioned to believe have not worked for me.

I’ve learned that if I value my freedom, I’ve had to become courageous enough to question what I’ve been conditioned to believe throughout my life. I want to be free and I want my children to be free. The only people who wouldn’t want me to question what I believe are those that either do not want me to be free. Or those who would be threatened by that freedom. The only people that wouldn’t want any of us to be truly free are those who would wish to control us….

So let me ask you, just how FREE are you? Really? And if you don’t feel very free, how great of a price are you willing to pay for that freedom?

Are you currently on a similar quest for truth? If so, feel free to share the evolution of your own journey.

NOTE: If you have a post that harmonizes or adds to this topic, please feel free to message me with a link and I will add it to the list of resources below.

Hi Samantha, your posts always inspire me to think and reflect more deeply. I don’t know that I have answers to your questions but what comes up for me is to teach our children (and ourselves) to ask questions but to wait for the wisdom to come from outside our “head.” And by so doing, we bypass faulty programming to create possibilities for allowing wisdom to come from the heart or through others to receive truth. This is the process that has changed my work and now almost every aspect of my life. Thanks for another great post!

Hi Bill. Thank you so much! I’m happy to know my posts have been inspiring and thought provoking for you. : )

You’ve brought up an interesting point, Bill, in regards to waiting for the wisdom to come from outside our ‘head’. I’m wondering where this ‘step’ falls in line with the need to be conscious of what enters our heads in the first place. There are great dynamics at work in regards to childhood conditioning, inheriting family and social traditions and beliefs that we mistake to be wisdom in the first place simply based on our automatic tendency to trust our caretakers and authority figures as children.

So if what is entering our heads in the first place isn’t wisdom (what we have been taught), how can we learn to discern true wisdom?

Hi Samantha, you raise another great question and one I hardly feel qualified to try to answer. But what if more and more of us are becoming more and more aware of this faulty programming, questioning it, and changing, which I do think is happening. Surely we will start to change things in us and what we pass on to our children that’s closer to the truth. It’s not a big bang solution, but I have to believe it can begin to bring about evolutionary change that could be quite significant in time. Thanks for responding to my comment!

‘But what if more and more of us are becoming more and more aware of this faulty programming, questioning it, and changing, which I do think is happening.’

Yes, I DO believe this is happening and as more and more of us share about it, the more it will happen.

One thing I did want to emphasize and that you have brought to mind in your comments is that the journey of questioning our beliefs is most certainly not an instant event, or overnight process. It’s also not something that we sit down at a table and start trying to churn up everything stored in our brains! haha Who’s got that sort of time anyway? haha

For me, it seems to work when I consciously become more aware of what my beliefs are in the moment. When a particular situations happens to trigger it. Or an interaction with someone. Then I’m able to more consciously explore what I’m ‘thinking’ about the situation and can explore whether or not it’s true, old negative programming, inner critic ‘stuff’, etc.

How has it worked for you? Or more specifically, how do you personally tackle ‘funky’ beliefs that crop up in your consciousness?

Thanks again for taking the time to comment, Bill. I appreciate your input!

Hi Samantha, thanks for your responses to my last reply. I agree this is no small task and we can’t expect overnight results… I know I have much work to do!🙂 I’m not surprised you came back with an even more thought provoking question.

You asked:

‘How has it worked for you? Or more specifically, how do you personally tackle ‘funky’ beliefs that crop up in your consciousness?’

Like you, I sometimes look at my beliefs in the now as situations arise in conversations with others or through reading. Case in point, one surefire way I’m learning to tackle ‘funky’ beliefs is to participate in blogs like yours and explore the excellent questions you raise on so many important topics such as truth, trust, leadership and many others. When deep reflection occurs, I believe there is a journey to a deeper truth that will help destroy beliefs that don’t serve us and replace them with more empowering beliefs.

However, I think the more significant way I seek to address limited beliefs is by focusing on who I want be, what I want to create, and what I’d like to radiate. I also try to find those answers through questions to receive answers outside my ‘head’ where I believe they have a deeper truth. This process seems to catalyze an inner journey to a higher self that I hope pushes limited beliefs aside for me.

Your question is worthy of much more reflection, but for now I’m going to need to get my head out of the clouds and get back to work! Have a great day!

Thanks again for taking the time to come back and share how you personal tackle ‘funky’ beliefs that crop up Bill.

Yes, I’ve found that the right questions delivered at the right time in a persons life can yield some amazing results. I love what you said here:

‘When deep reflection occurs, I believe there is a journey to a deeper truth that will help destroy beliefs that don’t serve us and replace them with more empowering beliefs.’

YES! When we find the courage to take the journey to intentionally discover the deeper truth for the purpose of destroying our limiting and false beliefs, we become free. No longer in bondage to those things that have only served to weigh us down and prevent us from being our true selves, shining our own lights, and empowered to actively live and serve our true calling.

You shared that you seek to address limited beliefs by focusing on who you want to be, what you want to create, and what you’d like to radiate. All very wonderful and powerful tools to use!

For someone with my background where there has been trauma, I have found that some ‘tools’ are not adequate or effective enough to achieve success in ‘creation’ until we consciously de-charge or dis-create the original traumas. Now this doesn’t mean digging up every stone of my past and churning up everything I can think of. I’ve had a coach that did that with me (even though I had already had extensive counseling) and I can tell you, it’s not a ‘safe’ approach to attempt all at once. In my opinion. Too much ‘energy’ is surfaced all at once that can actually paralyze instead of free us when we try to release old baggage.

So since then, I’ve come to discover that I only need to travel BACK in time as needed when a present situation points to the cause of an original formation of a negative or false belief. When I”m able to reframe an original traumatic event and release the negativity surrounding ‘what happened’, it helps loosen the stronghold of the false beliefs I created when the event originally happened.

Of course, this is a very simplified version. haha

In a nutshell, we need compassionate, empathetic, and skilled people in the world that are equipped to know which tool to use and at the right time, depending on the needs of the people we encounter. If there has been no serious trauma in the past, people will not need ‘extensive’ processing in order to progress on their own journey. For those of us that have experienced major trauma, there is much to be released that ‘prepares the soil’ so that focusing on ‘becoming’ who we truly are is not hindered. The new seeds won’t be so easily choked by all those old WEEDS! haha

Thanks again for taking the time to share Bill. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Deep post, Samantha. I’m not a parent currently, so I don’t really know what I’d do to minimize instilling faulty beliefs on children. There’s also the element that no matter what we say or do, young children don’t really have the sophistication or maturity to take what they hear and observe from us in the proper context. In other words, even if we do everything absolutely “right,” we have no control over what’s being internalized.

As for being free as an adult, what I continue to do is to raise my consciousness, to continue to wake up. Not much I can do about the past, but I can work on rewriting my story and a better future that’s as free of what you called “faulty beliefs” as possible. I’d like to think that the truth will always be important. But, as I get more into my spiritual studies, I’m seeking it less but trying to allow it more to come through. It’s more a gradual awakening than a hard-charging search at this point.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment Alice! Nice to ‘see’ you! : )

I”m glad you brought up the whole parenting/child issue. I certainly didn’t mean to imply any of us can achieve perfection when it comes to what we pass on to our children. And you are absolutely right, we have a great deal of influence as parents, yet ultimately don’t have much control as to how our children (or anyone for that matter) internalizes words, actions, and overall experiences.

As for us as adults, you are so right. We can’t do anything to change the past. My interests in my own past have more to do with what have I learned since then that can help re-frame what I ‘believed’ at the time. For example, when I was 3, I was sent to live in a foster care home for awhile. Being so small, the abandonment contributed to a ‘belief’ that I must be unwanted and unlovable. Otherwise, why would my parents send me there? As an adult, I have new information that doesn’t change that event or the pain I experienced. Yet I’m now able to look at things from a very different perspective then through the eyes of my 3 year old self. I now know and understand that I wasn’t abandoned because there was something wrong with me; that I was somehow unworthy and unlovable. It had very little to do with me at all. My parents had problems of their own that made it so that they could not adequately take care of me. This is just one example.

I love your idea about your journey being more of a gradual awakening.

As usual, Samantha, thought provoking questions you ask. I question whether some of us really want to be free. Freedom does mean responsibility; it can also mean chaos. Freedom as responsibility and chaos is quite daunting for many people. Feeling free is also quite different from being free. Often what we freely want to do isn’t free so is it freedom? Costs inhibit us; does that inhibit freedom?

For example, I feel free in the sense that I am doing the work that I want to do. However, sometimes I don’t feel free when an action requires a larger financial commitment than I have financial resources.

Nevertheless, the more important point is focusing on those influences that we’ve been taught, conditioned or brainwashed to believe. In fact, I’m not even sure if they are beliefs because some of what influences us is so ingrained in us that they are unconscious. If we aren’t consciously aware of them, are they beliefs? If we aren’t consciously aware of them, how do we challenge them?

For example, I had a client who often became irate when his teammates did something wrong. It turned out that his parents often did the same to him. He wasn’t even aware of the possible connection until I explored it with him.

I also wonder about contrarian pursuits. Do we pursue them because we want to “prove” we are free, or do we pursue them because we truly desire them? Are we even free to be happy with what we have? Or, must we always be wanting and pursuing more?

Yes, if something isn’t working for us, then we should try something else. The question becomes, “What should that something else be?” Yes, we could see what works for friends, but since we are different, is this viable?

Yes, challenging our beliefs is good, but change for change sake isn’t. That’s usually what happens in a mid-life crisis. So, after we challenge our beliefs, what’s next? To me, the challenging isn’t as tough as trying to figure out what’s right for you. Often there are many paths. For me, I’ve decided that it’s best to take at least one of those paths rather than sit there for eons trying to figure out which one is best. If I don’t like it, I’ll go back and try another.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and commenting Mike. It’s always a pleasure for me to be able to sort of ‘chew the cud’ with you when the opportunity arises. You’ve brought up so many great points, I can tell you right now we’d have a dandy time in a real-time conversation over it all! : )

In regards to freedom and chaos: Great points. I’ve also read some posts you’ve written on this subject. I don’t have the link handy to the one I have that comes to mind so I’ll try to summarize. As I recall, you mentioned something about people having varying degrees of comfort related to freedom/chaos vs order. And this is very true. It can also CHANGE over time for anyone. Meaning, I might have preferred more ‘order’ when I was younger. Now that I’m older, I lean more towards freedom and chaos then I used to.

At the same time, although I might enjoy the feeling of freedom and chaos ‘in general’, there are still specific AREAS in my life where I lean more towards wanting/needing to have ORDER. For every single person, this is going to be different.

As for unconscious beliefs and negative programming, etc. This is an area that has been of particular interest for me for quite some time. In my experience, training, an studies thus far, a great deal of our ‘beliefs’ operate in the background of our lives without us necessarily being conscious of it. Once we’ve been ‘programmed’, it tends to go on autopilot.

Most of ARE unconscious to all of those programmed beliefs until we reach a place where things aren’t getting better, or a crisis happens, etc. And reach out for help because we haven’t been able to change it on our own. And hopefully, people hook up with the right kind of person to help become more conscious of some of these things.

As for how we challenge them, we have to consciously want to do so. If we aren’t aware of it in the first place, we generally don’t even know where to begin or where to ‘look’. Generally, our feelings and emotions are a great place to start if we want to figure out what we really think and believe about things. My feelings are messages that let me know when something outside of me or inside of me is out of alignment with my highest good. Meaning, ‘outside’ isn’t always the problem or the ‘danger’. Sometimes it’s our own belief systems. It takes some discernment to learn the difference.

My uncomfortable feelings in the moment notify me to pay attention to what I happen to be thinking that might be contributing to what I’m feeling. As I consciously notice my thoughts, these become clues as to what unconscious beliefs might be operating in the background of my life.

Ok, so that was my attempt at a ‘nutshell version’. (grins) Obviously, there are many factors and things that influence each and every one of us that would take too long to cover here in one sitting.

Thanks again for raising some additionally valuable questions and always, I appreciate and value your insights and experiences Mike.

There is so much here to think about but it was the last question that struck a chord most deeply with me… “how free are you?” When we take an honest look at our life, which I think we should to on a regular basis, this should be on the list of questions. Thank you for a very well written and thought provoking post.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment Scott. I always appreciate your input and LOVE reading your posts! Thanks for letting me add the latest as a list of additional resources to my own. : )

Thanks for sharing that the question, ‘How free are you?’ resonated with you. For some of us ‘freedom lovers’, it happens to be a favorite!

I’m reminded of a post written by Jesse Lyn Stoner awhile back. There was some discussion about how we can drift unconsciously and we talked about the frog analogy. If you place a frog in a pot of cold water and very gradually turn up the heat. It won’t notice the change in temperature until it’s too late. Next thing you know the frog is boiling and it’s too late for it to jump out of the pot!

I’ve had more then a couple of frog in the pot of water situations. And the point is that we are not always very conscious to the fact that we aren’t really FREE as we would like to believe or ‘thought’ we were. i.e. in regards to the state of our union as a nation, or it could be with our own health, in a relationship etc.

So yes, it’s a good question for us all to ask on regular basis! Myself included! : )

Your post is so very simple yet so very powerful. It’s when we are brave enough to question the path we are on and the people who are on the path with us that profound light is revealed. But this bravery carries a burden of fear that can be almost unbearable. My message to others who are struggling through frustration and lack of energy is this: get silent and question everything you think you are doing right. Ask what it takes from your soul to get it right, ask if you are speeding toward your goal or being diverted from it. And then be patient for the answer, for in the answer will be truth and authenticity, the frustration will be eased, and you will regain your energy and power. It’s hard to go over that cliff. Trust in your resilience and the truth will find you.

Cyndy, thank you so much for taking the time to read and add to the discussion. Your comments are filled with so many nuggets of truth and wisdom.

Yes, the courage to question the path we are in and the people in it is also combined with fear. Both our fear of what other people will think and do. And the fear that comes from breaking through the limits of our own self-doubt. We feel great tension of crossing the threshold of our own limitations and boundaries and venturing forth into the unknown, while we might cling to the small sense of ‘comfort’ of what we currently ‘know’, even if we HATE it and it’s not in our best interests to remain the same or to stay where we are.

Thank you for sharing the link to your post Cyndy. As someone who used to work in healthcare, it’s an important issue. One of many! : )

As for teaching our children, YES! And I would add that before we can teach our children the truth, we must know it ourselves. That is why it is so important for us to ask ourselves the tough questions.

You know after reading this post ,it really confirmed what i was thinking about recently .

At times we live our lives by pleasing others and trying to make a statement instead of living the life that really matters to us .At times the masses don’t matter but only us matters and i think some of us really lose our sense of livelyhood by trying too hard to impress others or by living the life someone else chooses for us .

Thank you for sharing John. You are so right. Living to please others is something many of us have been conditioned to do since birth. This may cause a bit of confusion because it does not mean that we don’t live to serve…. the problem is when we are conditioned to be SO other-centered that we may not have ever learned to take care of ourselves FIRST. It was take care of others at OUR expense. Well…there comes a time when we get sick or start falling apart and can’t live to please ANYONE if we have neglected ourselves to take care of others. So there’s a balance.

When we put first things first. Take care of our own legitimate needs, we are THEN able to serve others from a more grounded, empowering place that is far less co-dependent and more interdependent. So it’s completely different then becoming narcissistic or self-centered. Although it might come across that way at first when people suddenly focus on their own needs that may have been neglected for a long time….or all the time! : )

Yes, when we try too hard to please others we lose our own way. It seems the more I stay close to my own course, the more capable I am of naturally serving the people that I encounter along my own path.

Thank you so much for sharing. I’m certain there are many people that would echo your sentiments.

Beautiful profound post. I love the way you dive into truth and make us swim in our reality.

Freedom? How free are we? Great question….

We want to think we are free ….. but are we really?

I believe we allow ourselves to have the illusion of being free- because life has this way of coming at us that sometimes takes your breathe away and yes we have the freedom- the choice – to see it, deny it, or make excuses but the PAIN is ever present and there is NO freedom in PAIN…..

freedom is a quick sand of a question- one that takes lots of identifying and clarifying.

Lolly, Samantha,
This is why I think you are both so brilliant. We must question and probe for truth. That takes courage, including the courage to be wrong and stand up to the reality. We must take our “wants” and test them with our “can haves” to see what moves us forward– the cost-benefit of the “wants” v our mission and purpose. We must also be patient for the answers as they are not always within range of sight. As Samantha once told me, we must wait for the trees to acknowledge our presence; we must wait for the truth-roots to validate the perceived truth.

Thank you Cyndy. Yes truth isn’t always as black and white as we might have originally been led to believe. Even our own truth…is simply that. My truth. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s THE truth, only my perception of it. And this is where we can get lost and stuck.

Yes, thanks for bringing up the Lost poem again. It’s one of my all time favorites and appropriately so since the author wrote it about my home state of Washington! : )

Lost

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.
Listen.
It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.

Yes, thank you so much for touching on the whole freedom aspect, Lolly. This shook me right down to my core when it dawned on me just how ‘deep’ it goes. I once wrote a ramble called America: Land of Addiction, Home of the Slave back in 2006 or so that I haven’t published…it was more like The Artists Way morning pages vent! : ) Yet it was important because it was part of my own freedom unraveling in addition to sifting through false beliefs. (and continue to do so)

Sometimes it is a question that overwhelms me. When I’m centered, I realize that it’s partly grace that only allows us to realize things a little bit at a time. Perhaps to prevent complete shock and overwhelm! : ) We can trust that as we grow in our ability to listen to our own hearts, when we become more familiar with the sound of our own hearts voice, it will act as a light that continues to bring freedom to the parts of ourselves that still might be bound in darkness….not yet free.

Here a little…there a little.

Thank you so much for adding your heart and thoughts to this. Freedom is an important topic for us all on so many levels. Globally, nationally, and individually.